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Schweik Action Wollongong is named after Jaroslav Hasek's fictional
character Schweik (or Svejk), a soldier who created havoc in the
Austrian army during World War I by pretending to be extremely
stupid.

Most of the work on this project
was done by Brian Martin, Sharon Callaghan and Chris Fox, with help
from Rosie Wells. Mary Cawte wrote the section on Netherlands
bureaucracies under the Nazis. A number of people gave valuable
comments on the case studies and the text, including Tim Anderson,
Eileen Baldry, Patricia Brennan, Robert Burrowes, Roger Clarke,
Richard Dunn, Marc Hulst, Les Kurtz, Robynne Murphy, Vince Neary,
Lesley Pinson, Yasmin Rittau, Tony Vinson, Max Watts and Deena
Weinstein. A few passages of text are adapted from writings by Brian
Martin. Cartoons are by Simon Kneebone.

1.
Introduction

The word 'bureaucracy' makes most
people think of government -- departments of taxation, welfare,
police, you name it. But actually bureaucracies are found everywhere:
corporations, churches, the military, trade unions, political
parties, schools, hospitals. Most people accept them as a necessary
part of life, although they may complain about them. Nobody likes
getting caught in bureaucratic regulations, popularly called 'red
tape'.

Yet most bureaucracies are pretty
new. Several hundred years ago there were hardly any bureaucracies
like the familiar ones today. Bureaucracies have gradually become the
main way to organise work. Their key characteristics are:

hierarchy: bosses at the top,
workers at the bottom;

division of labour: different
people do different specialised tasks, such as salespeople,
secretaries and accountants in a company;

rules describing the duties of
workers;

standard operating
procedures.

Bureaucracies have some good
points. Bureaucratic principles allow a certain degree of fairness:
everyone is supposed to be treated the same way. There is a procedure
to make sure work gets done.

But there are also problems. Many
workers in bureaucracies find their work incredibly boring. Because
work is segmented, it is hard to know what other people are doing.
There is no apparent common social perception.

Bureaucracies can be used for
antisocial purposes. Modern warfare is deadly because bureaucracies
are so efficient in organising for military purposes, especially the
weapons industry and the army but also the mobilisation of entire
economies for war. The Nazi genocide was the work of an efficient
bureaucracy. Most of the members of the Nazi bureaucracies just did
their jobs.

Considering how important
bureaucracies are and the sort of problems they can cause, you'd
think there would be plenty of information available about how to
challenge them. But there isn't. Lots of researchers have studied how
bureaucracies work, but only a few have studied how to change
them.

We got onto this topic because we
have been investigating nonviolent methods of resistance to
aggression and repression. Suppose an aggressor takes over a country,
as in the case of the Nazi occupation of Europe. To run the occupied
countries, the Nazis often preferred to use the existing
administration. In other words, the Nazis got the local bureaucracies
to do their work for them, such as collecting taxes and keeping
records on the population. This also included sending goods back to
Germany, forced labour in Germany, and the arrest of Jews and others.
Some of the bureaucrats resisted. Others cooperated. When top
bureaucrats serve the cause of oppression, subordinates and outsiders
need to know how to challenge them.

But many people would like to
challenge the bureaucrats at the top -- what we call bureaucratic
elites -- for other reasons. Some elites are corrupt. Some
discriminate against particular groups. Some divert the organisation
from its proper function. Since in a bureaucratic hierarchy there are
'elites' up and down the ladder, challenges may need to be made
anywhere along the hierarchy.

We set out to find some examples
of organised and effective grassroots challenges to bureaucratic
elites. This was not so easy. Most challenges are unsuccessful. Even
the challenges that are successful often just lead to changes in
policies or personnel. The bureaucratic structures continue on as
before.

We are interested only in
challenges that are nonviolent and that are in support of goals such
as justice, equality, freedom and liberation inside and outside the
bureaucracy. Furthermore, we are interested mainly in challenges
mounted from the bottom, especially by workers or clients. This means
we haven't considered administrative takeovers or destruction of
bureaucracies, corporate buy-outs or military conquest. Nor have we
considered struggles between bureaucratic elites inside the same
organisation or in different ones.

We did find some good examples.
Some are recent and local challenges. We interviewed key individuals
to find out the inside story. Most of all, we were interested in
lessons about how to wage a successful struggle. We added a few cases
documented in articles and books. We decided to include some
unsuccessful challenges too. These provide some of the most useful
lessons.

In Section
2 we tell a bit about
theories of bureaucracy. Since we're interested in how to challenge
bureaucratic elites, most of the theories are not very helpful. There
are, though, a few ideas of value, especially the idea that a
bureaucracy is similar to an authoritarian political system.
Section
3 gives the case studies.
In Section
4, we look at nonviolent
challenges to authoritarian political systems and the lessons that
can be drawn for challenging bureaucracies. Section
5 briefly describes some
alternatives to bureaucracy. Section
6 sums up the insights
from our analysis.

2.
The nature of bureaucracy

What it is

Bureaucracy is a way of organising
work based on hierarchy and division of labour. Hierarchy means that
some people are officially in positions of power over others. In an
army, generals give commands to colonels, colonels give commands to
majors, and so on down to privates. Similarly, the chief executive of
a company is officially in a position of power over their deputies
and so on down to the bottom level of workers.

Division of labour means that
different people do different parts of the work. For example, on a
traditional assembly line in a car manufacturing plant, one worker
might put the same bolts on car after car while others work on
windows, fenders, painting and so on. Yet other workers specialise in
car design, marketing, cleaning, accounting and so forth.

Hierarchy and division of labour
are the key features of bureaucracy. Other characteristic features
are standard operating procedures and rules which describe the duties
of workers. This results in the familiar 'red tape' encountered by
clients of large service bureaucracies. Workers follow detailed
regulations, often causing frustrating delays.

A bureaucratic organisation can
operate more or less the same irrespective of the identities of
individual workers. As long as there is someone who can fill a
particular slot and follow orders, operations will continue. Thus in
a bureaucracy the workers are replaceable cogs. Each worker or cog
does what is required; if one isn't working properly, then it can be
replaced by another. No one is essential. Even the top boss can be
replaced and things will go on just about the same as
before.

Bureaucracies are very common in
today's society. Most government bodies are bureaucracies, including
government departments, schools, the military and the police. Most
large corporations are run bureaucratically, as are most large
churches, political parties and trade unions.

This idea of bureaucracy is
somewhat different from the everyday picture, which is usually of a
government department such as the tax office. Government departments
are indeed good examples of bureaucracy, but so are large
corporations. The key is the way work is organised. When an
organisation such as a bank changes from government ownership to
private ownership or vice versa -- a process called privatisation or
nationalisation -- often the actual work done is not affected very
much. The bureaucratic structure is left unchanged.

Bureaucracy seems so common that
people sometimes think it is the only way to organise work. But there
are some other ways. Work is done in families -- cooking, cleaning,
shopping, etc. -- but families are not bureaucracies, at least not
many of them! Members of families are not replaceable cogs. It
matters who is the mother or father, and good work does not usually
result in a promotion up the hierarchy! The same applies to some
small businesses, where personal relationships take precedence over
official lines of authority. Some other nonbureaucratic ways of
organising work are feudal estates, a free market of individual
workers, and self-managing collectives.

Bureaucracy as a modern
phenomenon

Bureaucracies are so common that
it is tempting to think that they are inevitable and have always been
the standard way of organising work. But actually bureaucracy has
only become standard in the past couple of hundred years.

The rise of bureaucracy has been
closely linked to the rise of the modern state. The 'state' is a term
used to refer to the government and related entities including the
military, police, legal system, and the various functions run by the
government such as welfare, schools and diplomacy. The foundation of
the state is its monopoly over large-scale violence that the state
itself claims is legitimate, namely by the military and police,
within a particular territory.

States aren't very old. There were
some early states, such as the Egyptian and Roman empires, but they
were the exception. Most people worked on the land and were largely
unaffected by bureaucratic systems. The modern state as we know it
really got going in Europe several hundred years ago. War and
taxation were primary motivations. In order to obtain revenues for
warfare, it was necessary to set up a system to collect taxes, and in
order to obtain taxes from unwilling subjects, a military
establishment was necessary. To keep track of people and their taxes
required detailed record-keeping and people to keep the records. The
work of taxation officials was organised bureaucratically in order to
avoid the special interests that would otherwise undermine the
effort. Control had to be exercised at the top -- by the rulers, such
as a king -- so that money was not siphoned off by
intermediaries.

In many ways bureaucracy was a
great advance over previous ways of organising work. Individuals such
as the rulers of feudal estates could be unfair and cruel, rewarding
their favourites and punishing others. Bureaucracy promised to end
the personal biases and corruption that were so common in rule by
individuals. Bureaucracies were supposed to work fairly. A person who
did work well could be promoted, and it was not supposed to depend on
family ties and other factors not related to performance.

Even so, it is helpful to remember
that bureaucracy developed as a system ideally suited for the state
and the military. Bureaucracies allowed a few people at the top to
control the work of vast numbers of individuals. The military is the
nearest to an 'ideal' bureaucracy, with rigid roles, rules and
hierarchy. The military was essential to the rise of the state and
vice versa, and both were linked to the rise of
bureaucracy.

Needless to say, not all
bureaucracies are the same. Patterns of control vary from
organisation to organisation and can change. For example, in recent
years many corporations in the manufacturing sector have eliminated
middle management and introduced sophisticated technology, thus
producing a different pattern of control.

Understanding
bureaucracy

In most textbooks, bureaucracy is
said to be a system of administration, for getting jobs done. The
focus then is on how well the system is working, what problems there
are, how to improve the performance of managers, how to forge
appropriate links with other organisations, and so forth. This
perspective is usually uncritical of bureaucracy as a system of
organisation. It certainly gives no hints about how workers or
clients might challenge bureaucratic elites. Indeed, among the vast
number of studies of bureaucracy it is difficult to find more than a
few hints for workers or clients on how to confront and change a
bureaucratic system. That's one reason why we set out to find out
about how to challenge bureaucratic elites.

Deena Weinstein and a few others
have developed a perspective on bureaucracy that gives useful
insights for challengers. They say that a bureaucracy is similar to a
political system. In a bureaucracy, there are ruling groups and
opposition groups, attempts to climb the system and attempts to seize
power.

A bureaucracy is not like a
liberal democratic political system. There are no elections and
workers have few civil rights. Rather, a bureaucracy is similar to an
authoritarian political system, in which the rulers -- the
bureaucratic elites -- have a large degree of unaccountable power and
the subjects -- most of the workers -- have few rights and little
control over the rulers. Whistleblowers -- employees who speak out in
the public interest -- are similar to political dissidents: they are
attacked and discredited. Organised challenges to bureaucratic elites
are like opposition movements in dictatorships: the elites do
everything possible to smash them.

In an authoritarian political
system, the rulers can use violence against opponents. Violence is
not normally an option for bureaucratic elites, except in the
military where deserters and traitors can be arrested and imprisoned
or even shot in times of war. Bureaucracy can be seen as a system of
authoritarian rule without physical violence. The methods used
against challengers include dismissal, demotion, withdrawal of
support, harassment and slander. These are not as fearful as killing
and imprisonment. But penalties short of physical violence are
potent. Many people value their jobs greatly, both for the pay and
for self-esteem. The stress of going against the grain and the threat
of losing jobs make most people conform.

Why change
bureaucracy?

There are several reasons why it
is worthwhile investigating and promoting alternatives to
bureaucracy.

Corruption

Many bureaucracies are corrupt.
Bribes may have to be paid to get service. Cuts are taken from
payments to enrich a few at the top. Appointments are made on the
basis of patronage, not merit. The organisation is serving special
interests rather than the public.

Corruption is a potential problem
with all organisations, not just bureaucracies. The very idea of
bureaucracy, operating on the basis of merit and defined rules, is
intended to overcome the problems of corruption. But often the
bureaucracy simply becomes a way to make corruption more
efficient.

Unaccountable
power

Bureaucracies are based on
inequality of power. Superiors have power over subordinates, and top
bureaucrats have power over everyone. In a system of liberal
democracy, government bureaucracies are supposedly accountable to the
will of the people via elected officials. But control over actions of
bureaucracies by a few officials at the top is difficult. Often it is
the top bureaucrats who call the shots.

In the case of corporate
bureaucracies, there is no formal control over bureaucratic elites at
all. Supposedly, the competitive economic system provides some sort
of 'market discipline', but this is often an illusion, especially in
the case of large corporations. Government regulators seldom
investigate or prosecute abuses by corporate elites. Workers and
consumers have a difficult time organising to challenge these
bureaucratic elites.

The fundamental problem is that
top bureaucrats have a great deal of power over others. Lord Acton
said that 'power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts
absolutely'. There is plenty of evidence to back this up. Even the
most idealistic and egalitarian person, when put in a position of
great power, is susceptible to corruption -- not necessarily for
personal gain, but corruption in the sense of serving those with
power and wealth.

Bureaucracy and
domination

Because bureaucracies permit a
small number of people to control the work of many others, they are
ideally designed to oppress people in an efficient manner. The key
bureaucracies involved in dictatorships are the military, police and
prisons. Indeed, the military, police and prisons are closer to the
bureaucratic ideal than just about any other organisations. They are
essentially systems based on command. The key to the military is
obedience to orders. This, of course, is the opposite of
democracy.

In times of war, entire societies
are run on military lines. The economy is mobilised for military
production, in command fashion. The best description of a liberal
democracy in wartime is 'constitutional dictatorship'.

When the war is over, there is no
need for massive armies and central control over the economy. But,
often, elites are reluctant to relinquish their power. After World
War I, British Prime Minister Lloyd George persisted with the highly
centralised war cabinet until forced to change due to popular
protest. After World War II, allied armies had to be rapidly
demobilised because otherwise the soldiers would have revolted. In
spite of the collapse of the Soviet threat in the 1990s, western
governments have been very slow in cutting back on military
expenditure.

Basically, bureaucracies are a
convenient tool for domination. That means that when an aggressor or
usurper takes over a society, the easiest way to rule it is by using
existing bureaucracies to run things. The people in bureaucracies
have been accustomed to obey the rules and their superiors. So all
the new ruler has to do is change the directives at the top. If the
top bureaucrats are willing to go along with the new regime, that's
fine. Otherwise, they can be replaced by people who are willing to
obey.

Therefore, in order to be able to
resist aggression and oppression, workers in bureaucracies need to
know how to resist their bosses. If they only know how to acquiesce,
they may become accomplices. Effective disobedience is necessary to
defend human rights and values when they are being violated. This was
the original idea behind our study of how to challenge bureaucratic
elites.

What sort of change?

What does it mean to change
bureaucracy? Three answers are change of policy, change of personnel
and change in structure.

A change of policy means getting a
bureaucracy to do things differently than before. It might mean that
a corporation stops (or starts) dumping hazardous waste, that a
government education authority introduces a new syllabus, or that a
church allows women to become priests. Campaigns to change policies
are common and are reported every day. That doesn't mean it is easy
to succeed. Most changes of policy are introduced at the top, by
bureaucratic elites or by directors of the bureaucracy, such as
politicians in the case of state bureaucracies. For workers or
clients to change policies can be extremely difficult. Even getting a
small pay increase sometimes may require serious action such as a
strike.

Another sort of change in
bureaucracy is replacement of personnel. When corruption is
prevalent, a standard demand is to get rid of the corrupt individuals
at the top.

Changing policies or personnel has
some effect on a bureaucracy, but that doesn't change the structure:
the hierarchy, the division of labour, the standard operating
procedures. As long as the bureaucracy is organised the same way, it
is likely to continue doing the same sorts of things. A few policies
may change and a few individuals may be replaced, but everything is
still organised to continue the same sorts of activities. That's why,
when citizen protests help to shut down a proposal for a freeway, the
government road authority is likely to propose another one. That's
why, when top officials are replaced due to a loud campaign, that the
new officials often continue to do the same sorts of things. To
achieve fundamental change, a change in the structure of the
organisation is necessary. However, few campaigns seek to achieve
this. The focus is usually on the surface aspects, the policies and
the personnel.

3.
Case studies

To illustrate how bureaucratic
elites can be challenged, we investigated a range of areas and picked
out the following seven case studies. Several of them are local
examples, allowing us to interview key participants and gain insights
that might otherwise be unreported. In every case we obtained
relevant documents. We sent drafts of our accounts to knowledgeable
individuals and relied on their comments in making
revisions.

These short accounts are not meant
to be definitive. In every case there is much more that could be said
-- many additional intriguing issues, alternative perspectives,
reservations and qualifications. We didn't set out to write detailed
histories, but rather just to learn some lessons about how to
challenge bureaucratic elites.

Movement for the Ordination of
Women

Most churches were and are run by
men. For women of a church to demand equal treatment is a profound
challenge to the church powerholders, to be resisted at all costs.
This has nowhere been more true than in the Sydney Diocese of the
Anglican Church, a very conservative and entrenched church
bureaucracy. Two of the women who led a challenge to this bureaucracy
were Patricia Brennan and Eileen Baldry.

As long as they can remember, the
Anglican Church was part of Patricia's and Eileen's lives. They grew
up in Sydney through the evangelical era of Billy Graham in the
1960s. The church was for them a way of becoming passionately
involved with Christianity. At the same time, it seemed to be the
place for asking serious questions. Anglicans have a tradition of
intellect. Meetings with other Anglicans were a way to develop the
mind, to belong, to find a mission in life. Eileen and Patricia
became involved with the Evangelical Union and were closely
associated with this group as they worked their way through
university.

Eileen and Patricia, among others
in their group, went overseas on various forms of mission work in the
late 1960s and early 1970s. Patricia became a medical missionary in
Africa; Eileen went to Nepal as a teacher in a mission school. They
came back with a bittersweet understanding of Christianity, with real
questions about the patronising, racist and culturally destructive
nature of what many Christians were doing in other parts of the
world. For these women, serious doubts were emerging about the nature
of Christianity and the nature of their faith.

Most of all, they wanted to ask
questions about the relations of power in the church bureaucracy, a
matter quite separate from the teachings of Christ. A key question
was the position of women in the church.

When institutions and
organisations attempt to justify their behaviour with reasons, but
operate politically, they are working on a model of power, not
religion. The church operates on a military model. Yet the church
promises an independent source of inspiration and power, namely God.
Thus, the church has ideological power as well. A third source of
power is the idea of the church as a family -- the very best that the
social world can offer. Yet within these systems, there is little
room for challenging attitudes. Once the women tried to raise issues
about the role of women, the male clergy set up barriers to
discussion and barriers to change.

The church inoculates members
against attitude change. Patricia and Eileen, among other women in
the Sydney Diocese, found that their questions were neither listened
to nor answered. There was real resistance, both intellectual and
emotional, to their need to raise these issues.

In about 1980, some of the clergy
-- concerned that the Anglican Church be able to respond to issues
raised by the feminist movement -- asked a group of women to discuss
the questions of women's liberation and the role of women. At those
meetings, the seed was sown to develop a reform group. The women read
widely on feminist literature, on the Vietnam war, and other issues
of the day. Patricia did a survey of women in the Sydney Diocese
which revealed that a far greater number of them than they had
previously thought were concerned about the lack of participation by
women in the church bureaucracy as well as in the spiritual
activities of the church. These were not just radical women; they
were women of all political persuasions.

In 1983, at a special meeting, the
Movement for the Ordination of Women (MOW) was formed. The first aim
in MOW's constitution was to 'move the Anglican Church of Australia
to admit women to the ordained ministries of the church'.

Both Patricia and Eileen were
founding members of MOW. When it leaked out that a reform group had
started, the doors to negotiation rapidly closed. The power of the
hierarchy lay in not listening to the women. People opposed to MOW
refused to talk to members of the group, and pretended they did not
exist. Power lay in the church committees, in the rhetoric of
theology, in money, and in the male hierarchy of church
positions.

Although not all the women were
inspired by feminism, the group developed, through readings and
discussion, a language with which the bureaucracy could be
challenged. Another vital factor was the realisation that the
struggle had a purpose which was passionate, a matter of life and
death. If a woman, with her faith and her mission, is not relevant to
the church, then who is? The restriction placed on women by the
male-dominated church was like a foot placed on someone else's oxygen
supply.

MOW used five main strategies to
bring about change: education, persuasion, media, demonstrations, and
working through the church bureaucracy. Education allowed them to
inform: to find arguments from both the literature and from the
Bible, and to print and distribute papers. Persuasion became easier
after the MOW went national in 1985, and membership grew
dramatically. This support was vital. However, rational argument
alone wouldn't have got MOW very far.

MOW's most effective allies were
the mass media. (The local church media, not surprisingly, mostly
supported the church hierarchy.) Their talks, media releases,
initiatives and actions regularly received sympathetic coverage. The
best sources of favourable coverage were visits by female clergy from
overseas.

Demonstrations assisted the media
campaign and vice versa. Symbolic actions were vital to MOW's
campaign. For example, on an anniversary of Martin Luther's famous
challenge to the Catholic Church, MOW put its demands on a church
door. This was wonderful symbolism and was lapped up by the media.
Patricia thinks they should have been more courageous and
nailed the demands on the door, just like Martin Luther.
Instead, the women, afraid of what people would think if they damaged
church property, stuck the demands on with removable gum.

There was a cost that came along
with the intense media interest in MOW. The media wanted a single
spokesperson, and this usually was Patricia. Yet MOW, which tried to
work as a group of equals, contained many talented women. The media's
constant focus on a few MOW 'leaders' was therefore a source of
internal tension.

The fifth strategy was working
through the internal bureaucracy, by attempting to join
official bodies such as committees, synods, etc. This did not last
long -- they were stopped by the Sydney Anglican Church League, which
was vehemently opposed to the MOW members. Patricia was in a ballot
to become a member of the National Synod, but when the position came
up, she was passed over. The Anglican Church League controlled all
the committees in the Sydney Diocese, and put out a voting ticket for
every Synod. It controlled finance and was very influential over
appointments within the church.

The struggle to change the
bureaucracy came to a head in 1992, when the National Synod voted to
admit women as ministers of the church. Despite last minute actions
from the Sydney Diocese representatives to stop a secret ballot, the
mood was against the Sydney Diocese and the vote for women's
ordination was passed by two votes by the clergy. It is now
acceptable, except in the Sydney Diocese, to consider women as equal
to men in the church. However, the bureaucratic structure is
unchanged, and there is still a long struggle ahead.

The fear of MOW seemed out of all
proportion to its message. There seemed to be a fear of something
happening to God. It was really a fear of women and what women
represent.

On reflection, the women realised
the importance of picking a single issue that is potent symbolically
(in this case, getting women ordained). None in the group thought at
the beginning that ordination was all they were aiming for. The
deeper challenge was to the patriarchal nature of the church, not
only in decision making and control in management, but also for
example in elements of the service.

The bishops were mostly
sympathetic to MOW. On the other hand, the clergy (priests) turned
out to be more hostile and powerful than expected. They were
protecting their power.

It would have been easy for the
women to leave the church and start their own reformed church -- and
many of their opponents would have welcomed this. Yet, in a voluntary
organisation such as the church, to have any chance of success it is
absolutely essential for challengers to remain members of the
organisation.

MOW did not set out to challenge
the actual structure of the church. It aimed to open up access to the
positions of authority, not to undermine authority itself. Of course,
many male elites of the church did not see the difference, which is
why they felt that a challenge to their positions was a challenge to
the church itself, and even to God. Questioning the structure of the
church is perhaps the next stage of a feminist challenge, which might
include feminist theology. But for such a challenge to succeed, it
may be helpful for MOW to shut up shop and make room for other
initiatives.

Vince Neary versus State
Rail

Vince Neary worked for over twenty
years as a railway signals engineer, first with the London Transport
Authority and then, since 1974, with the State Rail Authority (SRA)
in the Australian state of New South Wales (NSW). His career was
untroubled until 1987, when he discovered what he believed to be
deficiencies in the signalling system used by the SRA. He also
discovered corruption in signalling projects for which he was
responsible, such as people senior to him engaging consultants and
charging their fees to projects for which he was responsible and for
which he had no evidence of any work done.

Neary complained first of all to
the people responsible for the unsafe signalling practices and for
the misappropriation of funds from his project. He was either ignored
or ostracised.

In May 1989, Neary complained to
the SRA's chief executive, Ross Sayers, who set up a task force.
According to Sayers -- many months later -- the task force found no
problems. But Sayers refused to reveal the report of the task
force.

In February 1990, Neary took his
complaint to his local member of state parliament, Nick Greiner, who
was the premier of NSW at the time. Greiner referred the issue to
Bruce Baird, NSW Minister for Transport. Baird simply replied that
investigations by the task force had revealed no problems. Greiner
refused to meet with Neary.

In May 1990, Neary complained to
the NSW Ombudsman. Taking advice from the SRA, the Ombudsman declined
to investigate, saying that the safety issue was being dealt with by
the SRA -- a conclusion which Neary disputed.

In August 1990, Neary complained
to the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC). In February
1992, ICAC announced plans for a public inquiry into the SRA's
treatment of Neary. A few months later ICAC told Neary the inquiry
would not be held since it would take too much hearing
time.

Also in August 1990, Neary took
the issue to the NSW Auditor-General's office, which oversees the
finances of government departments. By this time Neary had extensive
documentation not only of unsafe signalling practices and suspected
corruption but also of SRA attempts to cover up the problems. The
person at the Auditor-General's office dealing with Neary's complaint
was Dick Dunn. According to Neary, Dunn told him the SRA had failed
to supply documents -- in some cases claiming that they were lost --
showing that consultants had done work for the fees paid. Dunn also
told Neary that if the SRA did not produce the documents after a
formal request, the Auditor-General would probably refer to this in
his report to parliament. The next time Neary contacted the
Auditor-General's office, he found out that Dunn had been seconded
for two years to work for the SRA! According to Dunn, this secondment
was at the request of the SRA and the encouragement of the
Auditor-General. In November 1992, Neary received a letter from the
Auditor-General indicating that the investigations by Dunn and his
staff into consultancies revealed nothing wrong.

In September 1990, Neary used
Freedom of Information procedures to obtain a copy of the SRA task
force report. The SRA opposed this with every means possible. Neary
finally obtained it four years later.

In January 1991, Neary made new
complaints about unsafe signalling practices. In response, the SRA
commissioned a retired British signalling engineer, Brian Hesketh, to
investigate. Hesketh's report, published in May 1991, basically
vindicated Neary's concerns.

The more that Neary pressed for
consideration of his complaints, the more harassment he encountered
in his job. Shortly after release of Hesketh's report, Neary was
demoted and directed to undertake clerical duties. He was sent to
several psychiatrists for examination, a process that also served as
a form of harassment. In May 1992 he was attacked in parliament by
Bruce Baird, the Transport Minister. In June, Neary was directed to
stay at home on full pay indefinitely. When in November 1992 he
declined to accept being relegated to a clerical position, his pay
was stopped. He was dismissed from his job in March 1993 for going
public with his complaints. He made an appeal against his dismissal
to the Transport Appeals Board but was unsuccessful.

The lesson from this saga is that
a single principled dissident stands little chance against a powerful
bureaucracy. It is only a slight generalisation to say that the
official channels can be relied upon not to work. Dissidents
often hope that there is some authority, somewhere, that will look at
the facts and act to serve the public interest. This belief in
justice must be rejected. Bureaucracies such as the SRA operate on
the basis of power, not justice.

Neary started to have some success
only when he was able to tap into alternative sources of power,
outside institutional channels. He made contact with the organisation
Whistleblowers Australia and became a board member. He wrote an
informative 26-page report documenting his allegations and his
experiences. He made contact with a few sympathetic politicians. In
October 1993, the Ombudsman recommended that an independent technical
assessment be made into SRA signalling practices. The media gave
prominent coverage to this development and to Neary's
treatment.

In August 1995, Neary reached a
settlement with the SRA, obtaining some compensation. Part of the
settlement was that he not reveal the terms of the settlement itself.
Furthermore, no action was taken against SRA officials responsible
for the problems Neary reported or against those who victimised him
for his whistleblowing. On the other hand, on the day after Neary's
settlement, it was announced that there would be a public inquiry
into the SRA by the NSW Auditor-General, dealing with corruption,
harassment, fraud, mismanagement and safety.

[After reading this
publication, Chris Wheeler, Deputy Ombudsman, wrote to us in May 1997
pointing out that although it was technically correct that the NSW
Ombudsman had declined to investigate (in 1990), this did not
"accurately reflect the work done by this Office in response to
various complaints made to Mr Neary." The Ombudsman's Office in
October 1993 made a 40-page special report to Parliament about
Neary's allegations. It recommended setting up a full public inquiry
since it did not have the resources to carry out a full
investigation. Its preliminary (but nevertheless fairly detailed)
investigation showed that Neary's complaints warranted an independent
technical assessment. The report also noted the SRA's reprisals
against Neary and pointed to a flaw in the proposed whistleblowers
protection bill, namely that "the Bill does not enable the Ombudsman
to investigate a public authority's victimisation of a
whistleblower."]

The Vatican versus the
Modernists

At the very end of the 1800s, the
Roman Catholic Church was confronted within its ranks by a 'modernist
movement'. It was led by a small number of scholars, especially
Alfred Loisy, a French priest who published a key book in 1903. The
central organiser was Friedrich von Hügel, an English lay
scholar, who brought members together through a vigorous
correspondence, visits and conferences. Journals were also important
in mobilising the movement.

Some critics questioned the
Bible's story of creation, others the Pope's authority. Loisy said
that the church hierarchy existed for the sake of the church
membership, not vice versa. But what united the modernists was not
particular claims but a general approach to doctrine and dogma. The
modernists proposed that critical methods of inquiry could be used to
search for truth within the Catholic framework. Thus they questioned
the idea of dogma as conventionally asserted by the Vatican. As the
movement developed, wider agendas of reform of the church hierarchy
became more important.

The church hierarchy attacked the
modernists in a variety of ways. It put modernist writings on the
long-established Index of Prohibited Books, issued official
condemnations, set up a committee in each diocese to watch out for
suspicious activities and people, insisted that clergy take an
antimodernist oath, set up a secret international coordinating body
(the Sapinière) to report on suspected heresy to the
Vatican, hindered the careers of possible opponents, and
excommunicated leading dissidents. These measures were effective, and
the movement was dead by 1909.

But this isn't all there is to the
story. The Vatican actually needed the movement to exist.

In the 1800s, the power and
authority of the church were in decline. The power of governments was
increasing, especially in France since the French Revolution, at the
expense of the church. Modern science was growing in persuasiveness,
and sometimes it was used to challenge theological dogma, notably in
the case of Darwin's theory of evolution. Social movements and
doctrines, from liberalism to socialism and feminism, asserted the
power of individual choice and collective action against the dictates
of established authority. As well, for at least a century there had
been vigorous movements against the authority of the church, which
symbolised undemocratic regimes. These developments were a part of a
'modernist' challenge to the church hierarchy.

But the Vatican could do little
about social change outside the church. So it responded by mobilising
its internal authority, for example by establishing the principle
that the Pope is infallible and mounting campaigns against heresy.
These attacks against internal dissent, by creating an enemy, served
to mobilise support and to maintain the authority of the church
hierarchy.

This focus on dissenters actually
fostered the formation of the modernist movement within the church.
For example, denunciations of individuals and the listings on the
Index of Prohibited Books drew the attention of modernist
leaders to like-minded thinkers. Ironically, the modernist movement
then provided a method for the church hierarchy to strengthen itself:
the campaign against heresy highlighted common values and built up
bonds through action against the inside enemy.

The Vatican responded to the
decline of the church's external power and authority by asserting its
control internally. The modernists were challengers to the Catholic
church's bureaucratic elite, but they ended up being a means for
cementing the power of the elite. The lesson for challengers is to be
aware that attacks on challengers may be part of a larger process of
mobilisation of internal control. But even if they are aware of it,
what can they do about it? This is not an easy question to
answer!

Les Kurtz, author of a study of
this conflict, thinks that there are two lessons for challengers.
'First, efforts to increase internal control may well backfire,
especially in earlier stages of the movement. Earlier repression of
the movement helps to provoke additional opposition and a sympathetic
response from supporters. Second, most conflicts move quickly to
questions of authority that obscure the original issues raised by
dissidents. The real modernist crisis concerned the authority of the
Vatican hierarchy. Although it may be impossible to avoid the
negative aspects of such conflicts, one way to minimise adverse
fallout is to focus on Gandhi's advice to separate the doer from the
deed so that elites are clearly informed that they are not being
attacked personally.'

Prison reform in New South
Wales

The colony of New South Wales was
founded in 1788 as a penal settlement for British convicts. The early
decades of white invasion and colonisation of Australia were marked
by harsh brutality against both Aborigines and white
convicts.

Some of this brutality persisted
two centuries later in the state's prison system. It was much more a
system of punishment than rehabilitation. Conditions were appalling:
disgusting food, freezing or roasting temperatures, removal of
personal belongings, no work, long periods confined to cells. Then
there was the violence. Many prisoners were beaten by prison officers
for little or no reason. At Grafton Gaol, in northern NSW, where
'intractable' prisoners were sent, up to the late 1970s new arrivals
were systematically and brutally bashed by warders, often for
days.

As a result of these conditions,
in the 1970s there were protests and riots by prisoners. In one such
revolt, Bathurst Gaol was burnt down in 1974.

These 'disturbances' led the NSW
government to set up a royal commission -- with strong powers of
investigation -- to study the problem and recommend changes. The
royal commission recognised the brutality and inhumanity of the NSW
prison system and made numerous recommendations aimed at bringing
conditions in line with standard enlightened practice in Europe and
North America.

Instead of ignoring the report,
which is the fate of most such reports, the government acted on it.
It accepted almost all the recommendations. To implement the report,
it appointed a five-member Corrective Services Commission, headed by
Tony Vinson, a reform-minded outsider.

The reform agenda of the
Commission was supported warmly by almost all of the prisoners. But
it was also opposed, particularly by the Prison Officers' Union. The
prison officers of the 'old guard' were adamantly opposed to any
change that would reduce their privileges or their power over
prisoners. They opposed any penalties for unlawful beatings by prison
officers in the past, and many wished to continue with their brutal
methods.

Vinson found that it was
impossible to make significant changes by simply issuing directives,
since they were often simply not followed. Simple requests to build
recreation facilities were delayed for months. So he had to follow up
with personal inspections himself.

Old guard prison officers aimed to
get rid of Vinson and maintain the status quo. On several occasions
they went on strike, causing a crisis in staffing of the prisons. In
these strikes, the prisoners were helpless victims, being placed
under intolerable conditions which they often tolerated because they
supported the reform efforts. Vinson also won the support of most
prison supervisory staff, who put in valiant efforts to maintain
prison operations, as did the police, who were called in on some
occasions.

However, old guard prison officers
also had another source of support: the mass media. Most newspapers,
radio and television channels presented the strikes and other
disturbances as a crisis in 'law and order' and as evidence that the
tough policies of earlier years were needed. They portrayed every
escape from prison as a critical danger to the public and every
improvement in conditions as pandering to dangerous criminals who
should be punished. Only a minority of editors and journalists
understood and communicated the sensible findings of the royal
commission that humane treatment of prisoners -- and the reduced use
of prisons generally -- actually reduced dangers to the
public.

There were also prison officers
who supported the reform agenda. But they were often given a
difficult time by the entrenched members of the old guard.

If the NSW government had remained
solidly behind the Corrective Services Commission, the reform process
might have proceeded. But the disruptive actions by the prison
officers and the enormous media attention to the disturbances put
pressure on the government in the period before an election. About
two years after Vinson's appointment, the government minister in
charge of prisons withdrew support from him. This made Vinson's task
virtually impossible, and eventually he resigned. The prison officers
had won their battle to maintain a repressive prison
system.

The establishment of the
Corrective Services Commission was a courageous but ultimately
unsuccessful attempt to reform the prison bureaucracy from the top.
The Commission implemented many specific improvements, eliminating
many of the worst excesses of the previous era. From the point of
view of prison activists -- including many prisoners -- the
Commission went in the correct general direction but made a number of
mistakes. But even full support from one group, namely the prisoners,
would not have been enough to bring about lasting structural change
in the prison bureaucracy without support from the general
public.

The Dutch soldiers'
movement

The Netherlands is an affluent
country with a population of 15 million and a tradition of toleration
for dissent. In the 1960s, a number of social movements arose
throughout the industrialised world, including the Netherlands. In
this atmosphere, one soldier from the large conscript force in the
Dutch military said, 'Why not have a trade union of soldiers?' The
idea was raised at a meeting, and gained support not only from other
conscripts but also from officers, who welcomed unionisation of
conscripts as an adjunct to the officers' union push for better pay
and conditions. Even the head of the armed forces was supportive. The
union, with the acronym VVDM, was founded in 1966 and quickly gained
a substantial membership.

In the early years VVDM was a
'tame' union. Many of its demands were met quickly. For example,
soldiers received an increase in pay and were allowed to wear
civilian clothes while off duty. Soon, though, rank-and-file activism
increased outside VVDM, and the union's leaders were caught between
new activists and commanders who wanted radical demands to be damped
down. Locals chapters of the union were set up, and VVDM became more
democratic.

In 1967, a smaller and more
radical organisation, BVD, was set up by conscientious objectors. Its
members also included serving soldiers, recent veterans and activist
women. In 1968-1969 the BVD decided to become more active among
conscripts and to push VVDM towards more radical action. For many
years afterwards it continued to prod VVDM towards stronger
stands.

In 1970 a VVDM activist, Henk Van
der Horst, announced that he would no longer salute anyone. He was
sentenced to 8 months' imprisonment, a harsh sentence by Dutch
standards. This caused an outcry. VVDM took up the cause. They used a
variety of tactics, such as holding a 'national saluting day', in
which soldiers saluted everyone regardless of rank, including
civilians, in order to make fun of the regulations. Eventually, in
1973 a new government applied pressure on the Ministry of Defence,
which changed the regulations so that saluting became
optional.

Another radical demand -- for
soldiers -- was to wear their hair as they desired. A campaign
developed to challenge compulsory haircuts. In 1971 Rinus Wehrmann, a
new conscript, refused to have a haircut and was given two years in
prison by a military court. This sentence triggered massive protest,
with petitions and rallies. Civilians also added their voices. The
government quickly backed down. Wehrmann was released from prison and
haircut regulations were modified.

The struggles over salutes and
hair were about symbols of discipline and command. After the
soldiers' hair victory, military commanders and the Ministry of
Defence began to attack the developing soldiers' movement by
censoring its publications. This led to a series of struggles,
including some large demonstrations of conscripts. Eventually the
government worked out a compromise, limiting the censorship powers of
local commanders. It was another victory for the soldiers'
movement.

As well as dealing with issues of
freedom of expression, VVDM campaigned vigorously for better pay and
conditions. The climax of the initial campaign was on 14 February
1974, when 8000 soldiers -- nearly one fifth of all conscripts --
from around the country joined a demonstration at Utrecht. This
campaign led to improvements which gave Dutch conscripts salaries
almost as high as the minimum civilian wage, making them among the
highest in the world.

VVDM forged links in several
directions. It worked with Dutch civilian trade unions and also with
soldiers' unions in other countries. The Netherlands is not the only
country to have a union of soldiers. In fact, since 1965 there have
been soldiers' movements in every country where the standard of
living is high and where there is a substantial number of conscripts
as a proportion of the civilian population -- countries including
Switzerland, Sweden, US, Germany, Denmark, Norway and France. Yet
even by comparison with these other countries, the Dutch soldiers'
movement was exceptionally successful.

All was not easy, though. Military
commanders started using the tactic of preventing VVDM organisers
from gaining access to new conscripts, by making requirements for
long periods of duty. Another challenge was the setting up of an
association for conscripts, the AVNM, which was more conservative
than VVDM. However, AVNM, after gaining support, gradually became
more activist in order to maintain its membership.

After the mid 1970s, it became
more difficult for VVDM to make further gains. The society-wide
activist impulse from the 1960s was waning. Also, VVDM had been so
successful that there was less remaining to be gained. In 1979, the
government lowered the conscription age from 20 to 18; older
conscripts -- such as those who had finished university studies
before undertaking their military obligation -- were commonly the
most active in the union, so the lowered entry age reduced activism.
In addition, the length of service was reduced from 16 to 14 months
and conscientious objection was made easier, both of which weakened
the potential for soldier activism. VVDM's membership
declined.

Nevertheless, the movement
continued its activism in the 1980s and 1990s. It joined the huge
protests against nuclear weapons in Europe and supported conscripts
who refused guard duty at sites thought to contain nuclear weapons.
VVDM opposed military bans on posters in soldiers' rooms. It took
action against the violence within the military, especially violence
('hazing') against new conscripts by officers and older conscripts.
It has pushed for an end to wasted time, when conscripts have nothing
to do; in 1993 the Minister of Defence introduced 'efficiency leave',
allowing commanders to send conscripts home when there is no work for
them to do.

In 1992, VVDM decided to oppose
conscription altogether. It now believes that support for democratic
principles among Dutch professional soldiers is sufficiently strong
so that conscripts are not needed to safeguard democracy in the
military.

[In 1993, the Dutch government
decided to phase out conscription. The last conscripts left the army
in August 1996.]

The Dutch soldiers' movement has
had an enormous impact. Its gains have included dramatic increases in
salary, much greater freedom of expression and a considerable
relaxation in arbitrary military discipline -- discipline that is not
necessary for military efficiency. Dutch soldiers are acknowledged to
be very effective when it comes to military performance, such as
getting tanks into the field. But greater democracy in the military
helps only some sorts of military effectiveness, such as in resisting
foreign aggression. A democratic military is not so effective in
repressing the local population or fighting an aggressive war. A
democratic military will do a good job when the soldiers believe in
the cause, but not otherwise. This is the best argument of all for
supporting soldiers' movements.

The Australia Card

In the early 1980s, there was
considerable publicity and concern in Australia about people and
companies who evaded tax. In 1985 at a national meeting to discuss
tax, a few individuals suggested the use of identity cards to reduce
tax avoidance. Senior bureaucrats in several government departments
saw this as an opportunity to achieve an objective they had had in
mind for some time.

The idea was that every Australian
would have a unique identification number. It would be used for
taxation, national health insurance, welfare payments and potentially
many other purposes. The Health Insurance Commission was to
administer the system because it had the most developed computing
expertise. Data on everyone in the country would be held in a central
databank. As well, it was proposed that every Australian would have
an identification card, which the government called the 'Australia
Card'.

After being quickly developed by a
committee with members from several government departments, the
scheme was backed by the government. At first it was included among
several other taxation measures and did not receive much attention.
Because it was portrayed as a means to stop cheating on tax and
welfare payments, most people supported it initially.

A few individuals made significant
criticisms. For example, prominent judge Michael Kirby warned about
the implications for civil liberties. Information systems academic
Roger Clarke wrote several critical assessments, pointing out the
possibility for invasion of privacy due to the collation of data
about individuals from different aspects of their lives. He pointed
out that an identity number system would have little impact on tax
revenues or cheating on welfare payments. Sophisticated criminals
could easily beat the system. What the identity card system would do
best of all was increase the power of government bureaucrats over the
lives of ordinary Australians.

The Australian Labor Party held
government federally. Although Labor had a majority of seats in the
House of Representatives, in the Senate it did not. The government
was determined to press ahead with the Australia Card, but the
opposition parties in the Senate used their power to set up a
parliamentary committee to investigate the proposal. The majority of
the committee opposed the Card, but the government pressed ahead
anyway on the basis of a minority report. The Australia Card bill was
twice passed in the House and twice rejected in the Senate, at which
time one Labor Senator voted against the legislation and resigned
from the Labor Party. The Labor government used the repeated
rejection in the Senate as the basis for calling a general election
in 1987, which it won. This meant it could call a joint meeting of
the House and Senate and pass the legislation.

While the government pressed ahead
resolutely, popular opinion moved against the Australia Card. Civil
liberties groups took strong stands against it, and civil liberties
arguments became more and more prominent. Members of the public began
writing letters. Newspapers were inundated with letters. It was by
far the biggest issue in the country, with 80 to 90 percent of
correspondents opposed to the card. There were numerous petitions to
parliament against the scheme, with a greater total number of
signatories on this issue than any other in Australia's history. The
media, which at first had generally favoured the card, gradually
became more opposed.

In September 1987, as the
government moved towards passing the Australia Card Bill, popular
opposition escalated. The Australian Privacy Foundation was set up.
Among its founding members were prominent personalities such as pop
star Peter Garrett and cricketer Greg Chappell. There were rallies in
several parts of the country, bringing together unlikely allies,
including civil libertarians, left-wing trade unionists and
conservative bankers and industrialists. There were demonstrations in
several cities. In Western Australia, an anti-card rally attracted
tens of thousands, the largest number since the protests against the
Vietnam war. Many individuals, in their letters to newspapers,
announced their intention to refuse to cooperate with the
scheme.

All this pressure began to cause
cracks in the government's ranks. Many Labor parliamentarians
privately pressured the Prime Minister to withdraw the
legislation.

Ewart Smith was a retired public
servant (government bureaucrat) with long experience in the law and
legislation. The mounting concerns stimulated him to investigate and
then to join the chorus of opposition by writing letters. He also
closely inspected the proposed legislation and found a technical
feature that no one else had noticed. Even if the legislation was
passed, the Act's commencement date had to be passed separately, and
the government would have been unable to get it through the Senate.
Smith pointed this out to members of the parliamentary opposition,
who raised the matter in parliament to the disbelief of the
government. Smith's assessment was supported by other legal experts.
The government took the opportunity to withdraw the legislation. It
was never reintroduced.

Around the country, many people
had tremendous satisfaction and relief at the defeat of the Australia
Card proposal. Ewart Smith was hailed as a hero. On the other hand,
it was perhaps unfortunate that the proposal was defeated in this
way. If the Australia Card had become law, almost certainly there
would have been civil disobedience and an escalating struggle, which
would have mobilised the population even more effectively in defence
of privacy protection and civil liberties.

What it couldn't achieve directly,
the government achieved indirectly. In 1988, the government expanded
the uses of the existing tax file number system. Every taxpayer is
assigned a unique number. People are not obliged to state the number
to employers, but if they don't, tax is withheld at the highest rate
-- a strong incentive to provide the number. When introducing the
enhanced tax file number scheme, the government promised that it
would be used only for taxation purposes. Yet within two years
it was being used for nearly every payment of pensions or benefits by
any Australian government agency, with the sort of meshing of
computer databases that critics of the Australia Card had warned
about. In other words, the tax file number is really an identity
number. The measures that have been implemented go a long way towards
achieving what the senior bureaucrats set out to do, except that
there is no actual card.

The Australia Card was a potent
symbol. At first it was a symbol of the government's attack on tax
avoidance. But, due to the efforts of many individuals and groups, it
became the symbol of government snooping into the lives of
Australians. The campaign against the Australia Card was an amazing
success, especially in bringing together people from different parts
of the political spectrum. The campaign also attracted a range of
experts, including Ewart Smith.

Although the campaign was diverse,
it never penetrated the government bureaucracies. Therefore, the same
bureaucratic pressures for comparing computer databases remained.
Furthermore, the campaign did not create a strong continuing
organisational base. It was, perhaps, too successful too soon. When
the symbol of what it opposed was removed, the campaign dissolved.
The enhanced tax file number scheme was introduced without much
controversy.

Women versus a steel
company

BHP is Australia's largest
company. It began its operations in iron and steel but has since
diversified, especially into other minerals. But steel remains a key
part of the BHP enterprise, which controls almost all production in
Australia.

BHP's largest steelworks is
located south of Sydney at Port Kembla, a part of Wollongong, a city
with approximately a quarter of a million people. In the 1970s, over
20,000 workers were employed at the steelworks, and there was a job
for nearly any man who applied. But for women the situation was
different. Very few were hired, while most were put on a waiting
list. In 1980, the men's waiting list had only a few dozen names,
while the women's had 2000. The reason was that BHP refused to hire
women except for traditionally female jobs such as cleaning and
typing.

In the early 1970s, some women
protested against BHP's hiring practices, taking action such as
chaining themselves to the gates at the steelworks. But this
initiative fizzled out without any immediate change.

The trigger for a new campaign
came from the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), then a small left-wing
party with a Trotskyist orientation. (Today it is known as the
Democratic Socialist Party.) During a period in the late 1970s known
as the 'turn to industry', SWP members were encouraged to get jobs in
industry. In Wollongong the obvious place was the steelworks. Male
members of the SWP had no trouble getting jobs at BHP, but the female
members -- about half a dozen of them -- were rejected.

As a result, the SWP decided to
launch a political campaign, 'jobs for women'. Publicity for the
campaign led to participation of other women who had been denied jobs
at the Port Kembla steelworks, until they numbered 34 altogether. The
campaign organisers approached the key union covering the jobs they
sought, the Federated Ironworkers Association, and gained its
support. They also obtained support from the women's movement and
left-wing activists.

Although SWP activists were the
key driving force throughout most of the campaign, they played down
their SWP affiliations, instead emphasising that it was a women's
campaign. Indeed, only a few of the 34 women were SWP members. It
should be mentioned that Wollongong, a working-class town, has a long
tradition of left-wing working-class activism. Both the SWP and the
Communist Party of Australia have had a greater public presence and
respectability in Wollongong than in most other parts of
Australia.

Most of the 34 women were migrants
to Australia from non-English-speaking countries. Their campaign was
thus one of a small disadvantaged group against a powerful
transnational corporation. But the women had one great advantage.
BHP's reputation was important to it, and it had blatantly
discriminated against women for years. The women's publicity campaign
-- aided by the SWP's national network -- was a severe embarrassment
to BHP management.

The women produced an information
pamphlet, had it translated into several relevant languages, and
circulated it to BHP employees. For two days and nights in July 1980
the women set up a 'tent embassy' outside the gates of the
steelworks. They circulated a petition and gained the signatures of
more than 2000 male steelworkers. They set up a picket at the
steelworks and organised a march. Through these actions they gained
enormous support. For BHP it was incredibly bad publicity.

The women's campaign helped spur
along the official procedures, in which the state counsellor for
equal opportunity met with representatives of BHP and the union to
conciliate. In November 1980 BHP agreed to hire all 34 women. Once
they were hired, the campaign slowed down, even though there were
many other women who had been and were still denied jobs.
Nevertheless, by mid 1981 there was a second group of women
organising to get jobs following the success of the 34.

In the early 1980s, an economic
recession hit Australia. By the middle of 1981, BHP stopped hiring
new workers. Soon it began planning retrenchments. In the middle of
1982, the women reactivated their campaign because they were afraid
that the seniority principle would see them lose their jobs first.
They argued that their seniority should date from when they first
tried to get jobs at BHP, or at least from 1977, when equal
employment opportunity legislation took effect. Most of the 34 women
lost their jobs in late 1982 or 1983, along with thousands of
men.

The women's campaign was started
up again, with publicity and building of support from trade unions,
women's groups and others. This time, though, much of the effort was
channelled into legal action. One reason for this is that the women
were seeking a lot more than jobs alone, including monetary
compensation. The court challenge aimed at overturning entrenched
discriminatory practice. But the case moved at glacial
speed.

The women raised a lot of money
but it was not enough to pay for legal costs. They applied for 'legal
aid' (government-funded legal support), but it was denied by the
state government. So they mounted a campaign to obtain legal aid,
which finally succeeded two years later.

Now represented by lawyers before
the Equal Opportunity Tribunal, the women presented their case and,
in September 1985, won! They were awarded damages of over one million
dollars (an average of about $30,000 each). BHP appealed, first to
the state appeal court and then to the High Court, the highest court
in the country. BHP lost the appeals but the process took nearly four
years.

After the success of the 34 women
in 1989, another court action was begun, this time with 238 women who
alleged discrimination by BHP. It was a class action, arguing that
they were in the same 'class' as the original 34 women. The case was
run by the Public Interest Advocacy Centre. An out-of-court
settlement was reached in 1994. Eventually some 700 women received
payments from BHP, though in many cases the amount was much less than
the losses they had incurred due to discrimination.

The campaign definitely changed
BHP's hiring practices. The company has allowed women into
'traditionally male' jobs. BHP now presents itself as an equal
opportunity employer. But there haven't been many new jobs. The
operation is now much more capital-intensive. With new technology,
steel production is higher than ever but total employment at the Port
Kembla steelworks is now less than 7000, a third of what it had been
before.

The campaign was remarkable in
that a group with a double disadvantage -- women, most of whom were
from non-English speaking countries -- succeeded against a rich and
powerful company. One key element in the campaign was gaining support
from key groups, including the trade unions and male steelworkers.
Many male BHP workers supported the campaign, especially those who
had wives who wanted work. The other key element was publicity. The
political climate in the country as a whole was favourable, with
equal opportunity legislation on the books. The campaign had the
advantage of being a group operation. The women supported each other,
and between them they had many relevant skills.

The involvement of the SWP was
crucial, although this was never widely known. Nevertheless, the SWP
wasn't a perfect vehicle for the campaign since the level of
involvement by individual members varied.

Undoubtedly BHP is still a
male-dominated company. But the entrenched and virulent resistance to
women in 'male jobs' has been greatly weakened. Most of all, the
women's campaign showed that it is possible to win against a
corporate giant.

4.
Nonviolent action against authoritarian states

We described earlier the idea that
bureaucracies are similar to authoritarian states. This suggests that
lessons about how to challenge bureaucratic elites might be learned
by studying nonviolent challenges to authoritarian states. If
nonviolent methods work against dictatorships, then the same methods
might be used in bureaucracies.

Why nonviolent action, rather than
violence, against bureaucratic elites? There are several reasons.
Most bureaucracies maintain control without regular resort to
violence. (The military and police are partial exceptions.) The
struggles within bureaucracies are, in practice, struggles without
physical violence. Therefore, an understanding of nonviolent action
is likely to be helpful.

Violence tends to alienate
potential supporters. It encourages secrecy and dependence on
commanders and thus clashes with the aim of participation and
democracy. Terrorism or guerrilla warfare against top figures in
churches, corporations and government departments is likely to create
a wave of sympathy for those who are attacked and thus be totally
counterproductive.

Gene Sharp, the leading researcher
on nonviolent action, identified 198 different types of
nonviolent action and provided examples of each one. Sharp divides
the methods of nonviolent action into three categories: symbolic
actions, noncooperation, and intervention and alternative
institutions.

Symbolic actionsinclude:

formal statements (speeches,
letters, petitions);

slogans, leaflets,
banners;

rallies, protest marches,
vigils, pickets;

wearing of symbols of
opposition (such as the paper clips worn by Norwegian civilians
during the Nazi occupation);

Nonviolent action has been used to
promote social justice, as in some of the campaigns led by Gandhi in
India and the US civil rights movement. There are also several
examples of spontaneous use of nonviolent action against military
aggression, military coups, and repressive governments:

Collapse of a military coup in
Germany in 1920;

German resistance to the
French and Belgian occupation of the Ruhr in 1923;

Toppling of ten dictatorships
in Central/South America, 1931-1961;

Nonviolent resistance to Nazi
occupation of Europe, 1939-1943;

Collapse of a military coup in
the French army in Algeria in 1961;

Czechoslovak resistance to the
Soviet invasion in 1968;

Toppling of the repressive
Iranian government in 1978-79;

Toppling of the Marcos regime
in the Philippines in 1986;

Palestinian intifada, a
resistance to Israeli rule from 1987-93;

Collapse of Eastern European
communist regimes in 1989.

Nonviolent action against a
repressive government is based on the principle that no regime --
whether a democracy or military dictatorship -- can survive without
the passive support or nonresistance of a large proportion of the
population. In other words, all societies are built on consent,
cooperation and obedience. Nonviolent action can systematically
disrupt this consent, cooperation and obedience and replace it by
noncooperation and disobedience.

This has obvious applications to
bureaucracies. If, in a business corporation or a government body,
large numbers of workers refuse to carry out instructions, set up
their own communications systems and mobilise supporters from the
outside, then top officials can do little about it.

This idea applies to military
forces themselves. If only a few soldiers refuse orders, they can be
arrested or shot: discipline can be maintained. But if large numbers
refuse to cooperate, an army cannot function.

What about ruthless invaders who
just keep killing people at the least hint of resistance? What can be
done to stop a programme of total extermination? How can nonviolent
action possibly work against repressive regimes?

Real-life dictatorships are not as
all-powerful as might be imagined. Under the brutal military regimes
in Argentina and Chile, many individuals continued to openly express
opposition in the workplace, in public protests and in the media.
Protests have shaken the harsh regimes in South Korea and Burma. If
nonviolent resistance could be prepared for and expanded, then
dictatorships would be difficult to sustain.

Repression is less likely if the
ruler is dependent in some way on the nonviolent resisters. This
might be economic dependence; it could be the influence of family
members who know people in the resistance; or it could be a sense of
ethnic or cultural identity. If there is a dependency relationship,
then the ruler will encounter great obstacles if severe repression is
used. But if there isn't some direct or indirect connection between
the two sides, then even a fairly benevolent ruler may do really
nasty things. Dependency, not attitude, is the key.

The methods and tactics of
nonviolent resistance need to be specially chosen if repression is
harsh. More use can be made of quiet 'mistakes' in carrying out tasks
and 'misunderstandings' of orders. Preparation in advance is crucial
for things such as shutting down factories, protecting dissidents,
providing food and shelter for survival, maintaining communications
and exposing repression to the world. When support for the resistance
becomes widespread, open defiance becomes possible.

There is much more that could be
said about the dynamics of nonviolent action and many examples that
could be given about how it operates. We give here two examples of
nonviolent action against authoritarian regimes: the nonviolent
challenges to the dictatorship in El Salvador in 1944 and in East
Germany in 1989. Since these dictatorships have similarities to
bureaucracies, these cases provide some insight into what is required
for a successful challenge to bureaucratic elites.

El Salvador, 1944

Maximiliano Hernández
Martínez became the dictator of El Salvador in 1931. Although
he introduced some valuable reforms, he ruthlessly crushed political
opposition. In 1932, an armed uprising was brutally put down by the
military.

Opposition developed in 1943, with
leaflets and petitions. The government responded with increased
censorship, arrests and other controls. The opposition was stimulated
by US government rhetoric of a fight for freedom and democracy
against Nazism. Also important was outrage over constitutional
changes allowing Martínez to serve a further six-year term as
president.

On 2 April 1944, there was a
military revolt, which was repressed harshly. This helped to trigger
a nonviolent insurrection. University students took the lead and
organised a student strike, which spread to high schools. Over a
period of a few weeks, physicians and business people joined the
strike, until virtually the entire country was at a standstill,
including government offices, banks and railways. This was
essentially a stay-at-home strike, which cut most
services.

Police shot at some boys, killing
one. As a result, large crowds surged onto the streets. On 8 May,
Martínez agreed to resign, and he left the country three days
later.

The military was not used to crush
the insurrection. The unreliability of the soldiers had been shown by
the 2 April revolt. The officer corps, which was loyal to
Martínez, did not risk using the army against the
population.

While the nonviolent action of the
people was enough to bring down Martínez, it was not effective
in ensuring a transition to a nonrepressive society. There was a
military coup later in 1944. The years since have seen continued
oppression of El Salvadoran people.

In Guatemala a few weeks later in
1944, stimulated by the example of El Salvador, the government was
also toppled by nonviolent insurrection. In addition to these two
cases, between 1931 and 1961 eight other Central/South American
presidents were ousted by nonviolent insurrection.

The case of El Salvador
illustrates that even in a police state there are opportunities for
effective nonviolent resistance, although of course at a risk. A
seemingly innocuous leaflet can be a very significant form of
defiance. Wider noncooperation can be triggered by the process of
open resistance, via strikes and further leaflets. If nothing is done
by the government, others are emboldened to join in; repressive
steps, on the other hand, can cause outrage and an expansion of
resistance.

The nonviolence of the
insurrection was important to its success. By contrast, the 1932
armed revolt was a fiasco. The campesinos (small farmers)
killed about 100 soldiers, leading the military to retaliate with
mass executions of perhaps 10,000 people.

This case illustrates the
importance of making a link between nonviolent resistance to
repression and a 'positive programme' to create alternative
institutions. Being against repression is not enough -- action
for a different system is also necessary.

These lessons apply directly to
the problem of challenging a bureaucratic elite. It is important that
the climate for a challenge be appropriate. Then it is necessary for
some individuals or groups to take the lead, such as the students in
El Salvador. The methods used must be things that everyone can do,
such as going on strike, working to rule or systematic noncooperation
with particular orders. Finally, even a victory against the existing
elites is likely to be short-lived -- new problems are likely to
appear with new bosses -- unless some alternative structure can be
established.

East Germany, 1989

After World War II, East Germany
became a separate country, ruled by the Communist Party and under the
domination of the Soviet Union. The East German government developed
a powerful apparatus for controlling the population. Favours were
given to those who supported the regime, while secret police spied on
possible opponents. There were opponents, but any public protest was
put down brutally, such as the demonstrations and strikes in
1953.

Real opportunities for change only
came in the late 1980s. The Soviet Union, under Mikhail Gorbachev,
introduced a number of reforms. One change was that Eastern European
regimes could no longer rely on Soviet troops to intervene in their
support. As well, reform processes were under way elsewhere in
Eastern Europe. Nevertheless, the East German government appeared to
be a powerful opponent: it retained troops, weapons and a pervasive
system of surveillance.

Two processes were crucial in
causing the collapse of the East German regime: emigration and public
protests. In 1961, the East German government built a wall along the
borders with West Germany in order to prevent emigration to the west.
In May 1989, the 'iron curtain' between east and west was breached
when the Hungarian government pulled down the physical barrier
between Hungary and Austria. This allowed Hungarians to emigrate.
East Germans could leave too, simply by taking a trip to Hungary. On
11 September, Hungary officially opened its border with Austria. Some
15,000 East Germans emigrated within three days. The massive exodus
hurt the East German government seriously, reducing its
legitimacy.

Public protests also developed
very quickly. Rallies in the streets of East German cities began with
a small number of people. Within weeks, tens of thousands and then
hundreds of thousands were participating. The combination of massive
rallies and continued emigration of 10,000 people per day led the
entire East German government to resign in November 1989. The Berlin
Wall was dismantled. In 1990, free elections were held for the first
time.

The combination of exit
(emigration) and voice (public protest) was enough to undermine the
repressive East German state. Many of those who emigrated were key
workers. East German industry, transport and services were soon in
deep trouble. More importantly, massive emigration exposed the
government's claim that East Germany was on the road to being an
ideal communist state. The rallies were also essential in exposing
the lack of support for the government. With such a show of popular
opposition, government leaders did not dare to use force against the
population, for fear that troops would not obey and that violence
would only increase the opposition. Because the protests were
entirely nonviolent, there was no convenient pretext for attacking
the protesters. Furthermore, the nonviolence of the protests made it
much easier for more and more people to join in.

A number of existing conditions
made the collapse of the East German regime possible. First, it had
only limited support from the population. Second, its outside support
(Soviet military backing) was withdrawn. Third, people were able to
exit to an attractive alternative (West Germany). Fourth, there were
individuals and groups willing to challenge the government
openly.

The East German revolution of 1989
provides lessons for challenging oppressive bureaucracies. After all,
East Germany was like a giant bureaucracy, run by the communist party
elite and controlling all people's lives. To challenge a powerful,
oppressive bureaucracy by using the combined effects of exit and
voice requires that:

the bureaucratic elites have
only limited support;

the bureaucracy is not backed
by another, more powerful group (such as corporate elites who are
backed by governments);

there is an attractive
alternative source of employment or economic security;

there are members of the
bureaucracy who are willing to organise open protests.

Social defence

If an entire system of nonviolent
action could be planned and prepared in advance, a society could
defend itself nonviolently against aggression or repression. This is
called social defence, which can be defined as nonviolent community
resistance to aggression as an alternative to military defence. It is
also called nonviolent defence, civilian-based defence and civilian
defence.

As well as nonviolent action
against aggressors, such as strikes, fraternisation and setting up
alternative institutions, there are also offensive measures to be
taken, such as communications to undermine international and domestic
support for the aggression. Social defence does not mean just
sitting there and accepting whatever the aggressor
inflicts.

Since social defence is based on
popular participation, it removes the dependence on a professional
defence force. The nonviolent methods used against a foreign
aggressor can also be used against local military forces that try to
take power.

No society has ever systematically
organised itself for social defence. The historical examples of
nonviolent action against repressive governments provide many clues
for building a successful social defence system. Here we look only at
the relationship between social defence and bureaucracy. Imagine a
society that has developed a system of social defence. What should
bureaucrats do when confronted by a ruthless ruler? Should they
resign? Should they stay in their positions and try to protect their
subordinates and clients as much as possible? The answers to such
questions are difficult, especially because they have almost never
been asked or discussed. Some insights are available from the
experience in the Netherlands during the Nazi occupation.

Netherlands bureaucracies under
the Nazis

by Mary Cawte

An occupier relies on
bureaucracies for the successful administration of the territory, and
obviously so does the occupied population. A bureaucrat who disobeys
overtly may be dismissed and replaced by a collaborator, with
unfortunate consequences for the population. Cooperation may further
the war aims of the enemy and cause suffering to the population.
While opportunities exist for Schweikism and resistance, bureaucrats
taking this course work on a slippery slope of collaboration in order
to preserve these opportunities.

Postwar trials of those accused of
collaboration are loaded with difficult questions and moral dilemmas.
In truth, civil servants were working in a moral minefield, a
situation made even more problematic by their training and
traditions, and by the putative effect of the Hague International
Convention setting out the rights and responsibilities of both sides
in the event of a military occupation.

In 1937 the Dutch government
prepared a set of rather vague secret instructions for their civil
servants in the event of a military occupation, assuming that the
occupier would respect the Hague International Convention. On 10 May
1940 German troops invaded the Netherlands. On 13 May the Queen and
the Cabinet escaped to England and later proclaimed their London
government-in-exile the legal administration. The Secretaries General
(the permanent heads of government departments) were left to make
their individual decisions whether or not to remain in office and
serve the Germans. The Directives of 1937 had advised them to
continue working if that served the Dutch population, but to resign
if such service was outweighed by the benefit to the
enemy.

On 13 May Hitler issued a decree
establishing a German civil government, and appointed a High
Commissioner to supervise existing Dutch administration. When the
Secretaries General decided in June to stay on, most of their
subordinates did so also. The High Commissioner was well satisfied,
aware that the introduction of rationing and security regulations and
the transfer of resources to Germany would be much easier if issued
over the signatures of the Secretaries General. At the same time he
assumed the right to issue laws by decree, and many such decrees were
issued. At first, while German power remained largely unchallenged,
these decrees were effective. Increasingly, however, they were
sabotaged directly or indirectly by patriotic officials, the
Resistance and the general population.

The German administration soon
began discharging 'unreliable' officials. (In November approximately
2500 Jewish officials were dismissed.) As too few 'reliable' Nazis
had the necessary technical and administrative qualifications,
complete nazification of the bureaucracy was not feasible. By
September 1943, however, the High Commissioner had replaced eight out
of eleven provincial commissioners and the mayors of all major
cities. Their powers were greatly expanded, moreover, taking over the
legislative functions of the former elected municipal and provincial
councils.

Sooner or later, most of the
Secretaries General, facing demands to which they could not agree,
resigned or were removed. Of the eleven serving in 1940, only three
remained at the end of 1943. Those who did serve to the end of the
occupation in 1945 faced postwar commissions of inquiry which judged
that too often civil servants had been overly cautious and had
assisted the enemy rather than the general population.

In his defence, the Head of the
Department of Internal Affairs, described as 'a conservative civil
servant with a limited horizon', argued that he had been told in May
1940 to remain in office and received no orders to the contrary, and
that he collaborated to a degree in order not to be replaced by a
National Socialist. He resented criticisms by the government-in-exile
and attacks by the Resistance. He claimed that in return for
cooperation he obtained a number of concessions, supported patriotic
mayors, delayed or weakened certain German measures (such as a
proposed loyalty declaration by all government officials), and often
forced Germans to do their own dirty work. Although he collaborated
with Germany's labour draft, he tried to decrease the numbers
actually drafted. Certainly after 1943 his attitude changed in
response to harsher German policies (as indeed did the attitude of
most of the population), and he refused to sign the order instituting
a new rationing system because he realised it was designed to catch
people in hiding. In 1944, after an attempt to assassinate him, he
himself went into hiding.

The Secretary General of the
Departments of Agriculture and Fisheries and of Commerce Industry and
Shipping also remained in office. 'An intelligent and capable
official', he attempted to prevent the complete collapse of the Dutch
economy. Although he realised that the German administration would
use Dutch resources to the fullest possible extent, he managed to
convince himself that 'political problems should not play any part in
the economic administration of the country'. During the occupation he
was attacked by both the underground press and the
government-in-exile. After the liberation he was suspended from
office because of his collaboration and eventually given an
honourable dismissal. Later he was regarded rather more favourably,
as it was judged that he 'played his cards close to his chest and
stubbornly and consistently followed a line of conduct which he
believed best served the interests of the population and the
prospects of postwar survival of the Netherlands as an economically
and socially viable state'.

The Acting Secretary General of
the Department of Social Affairs (appointed after his predecessor
resigned in 1940) was prompted by human and patriotic motives, and
wanted to preserve public health, to maintain social welfare and
prevent hunger, disease and death as far as possible. Having decided
that he could do some good by remaining in office, he then had to
compromise more and more, becoming 'one of the most submissive and
collaborating non-Nazi Secretaries General'. He was designated
'Number One Bootlicker' by the underground press.

The mayors of small towns, who
were in charge of local police forces (distinct from the German
police apparatus), population records and rationing offices, were in
a particularly difficult position. They had to cooperate enough to
retain office but not enough to lose people's confidence. At first,
compromise enabled them to cover for administrative sabotage by
others, but later when it involved cooperation in the pursuit of
people in hiding, compromise became impossible. Many mayors, and in
some cases entire police units, went underground.

In 1943, the resistance published
an underground 'Commentary on the 1937 Directives', to make them more
specific, and more importantly to stiffen bureaucratic resistance.
The Commentary urged strict non-compliance, even in the face of
dismissal, and emphasised that the government-in-exile remained the
legal government. Bureaucrats were individually responsible and would
be legally accountable after liberation. Endorsing the Commentary,
the Prime Minister stated further that bureaucrats had no right to
their own interpretations. And while the National-Socialist Secretary
General of Justice assured them that they could plead duress in the
event of an Allied victory, the underground press warned that they
could plead duress only if personally threatened by
'disproportionately severe punishment'.

The Directives, however, had not
been intended to organise administrative resistance, but to adapt the
administration to occupation under the terms of the Hague
International Convention. The content was vague and not very useful
in a situation without precedent. And when in 1942 the Dutch Supreme
Court had an historic opportunity to give an opinion on whether a
particular German decree conformed to the Hague Convention, it could
not reach agreement and did not issue a judgement.

One underground pamphlet of 1943,
attacking bureaucrats who remained in office because they thought
'they could do more good' that way, argued that any compromise or
expediency was wrong; decisions could be based only on the inherent
right or wrong of a given situation. Unfortunately, government
officials did not seem to have a common set of values, apart from a
traditional sense of duty and a respect for bureaucratic process and
efficiency.

The conduct of the bureaucrats has
been scrutinised, assessed and reassessed from various viewpoints
during and after the occupation. The questions remain. What should
they have done? What could they have done? What would you have
done?

5.
Alternatives to bureaucracy

There are quite a few possible
alternatives to bureaucracy as a way of organising work. The
important thing from our point of view is alternatives that avoid the
central problems of bureaucracy: unaccountable power and
domination.

Local autonomy

Running things on a smaller scale
is one way to limit the power of bureaucratic elites. Instead of an
organisation to deal with a population of millions, there might be
many organisations each dealing with populations of thousands. In
smaller organisations, personal relationships and face-to-face
dealings reduce the effect of hierarchy and the division of
labour.

For example, consider a school
system being administered by a central bureaucracy, as in the state
of New South Wales. The syllabus for hundreds of schools is decided
at the top. This gives key directors and officials a vast amount of
power to influence what children are taught. If decisions about the
school curriculum are decentralised, with each school making
decisions about syllabus and staffing, then central domination is
reduced.

With decentralisation there is, of
course, the problem of local abuses of power. But at least there may
be the opportunity for wider public participation in decision-making.
Yet another stage of decentralisation would be to provide generous
support for alternative schools, home schooling and learning by
doing. Ending compulsory schooling entirely would reduce the power of
educational bureaucracies. Whether or not one agrees with such
alternatives, this example illustrates how local autonomy can
undermine the power of bureaucratic elites.

Workers'
control

An autonomous work group is a
group of say 4 to 12 workers -- typically at a shop floor level --
who collectively decide on how their job will be done and how the
tasks will be divided up or rotated. Sometimes such groups develop
spontaneously, as in the case of coal mining in Britain prior to
mechanisation and at the shopfloor level in many heavy industries.
There have also been diverse planned experiments with autonomous work
groups. In most cases the technical as well as the social aspects of
the work are reorganised, and so this alternative is sometimes
referred to as socio-technical design.

The experience with autonomous
work groups has been highly successful. No one is forced to join a
work group, but for those who do, job satisfaction, creativity and
initiative almost invariably increase. In addition, productivity is
maintained and usually increased. Because of greater job
satisfaction, turnover, absenteeism and sabotage are
reduced.

To take only one of many possible
examples, in an experiment at a pulp mill in Norway, work was
reorganised so that skills were upgraded and job rotation was
introduced in a limited form. The results included improvement in
quality and costs of production, better communication and teamwork
between operators, and many suggestions from the workers for
technical improvements.

The key point here is that
autonomous work groups reduce the power of bureaucratic elites.
Improvements in productivity and satisfaction are a bonus. But these
improvements also demonstrate an important point. Bureaucratic
systems are not more efficient. The main reason they continue is that
those at the top would rather keep their power than experiment with
participatory alternatives.

When workers themselves decide
what tasks they will do and how they will carry them out, this is
called workers' control or workers' self-management. Instead of
operating using hierarchy, self-management involves a rough equality
of power. This doesn't mean that everyone does the same thing, but
that workers decide themselves what division of labour is
appropriate. (What is called 'industrial democracy', by contrast, is
usually much more limited, typically involving worker representation
on management structures. This doesn't necessarily reduce the power
of bureaucratic elites.)

A slight generalisation from
workers' control is worker-community control. As well as workers,
relevant members of the community are involved in deciding what work
should be done. For example, in setting up transport systems, all
members of the community are potentially affected and could be
involved in decision-making. Thus development of alternatives to
bureaucracies quickly leads to the wider issue of participatory
democracy.

Participatory
democracy

An autonomous work group can make
decisions through face-to-face discussions. But what about the larger
scale, when there are hundreds or thousands of workers? Some sort of
system for collective decision-making is needed. There are several
models. A familiar one is voting, whether directly on policy issues
as in a referendum or for representatives or delegates.

Another model is consensus, using
formal procedures for seeking agreements, proposing alternatives,
making objections and reaching agreement. Consensus methods can work
well for smallish groups but have difficulty when groups are large or
there are fundamental differences in values.

A little-tried method is random
selection, as in selection of juries for trials. Instead of selecting
decision-makers by appointment or voting, they would be selected by
lot from volunteers, with procedures to ensure balance between men
and women, etc. The advantage of random selection is that those
chosen have no special mandate -- such as skills, experience or
popularity -- and thus are far less likely to gain unaccountable
power. Experiments in the United States and Germany have shown that
randomly selected groups of citizens can do an excellent job dealing
with complex and contentious issues, showing both commitment to the
task and a great deal of common sense. Random selection has been used
occasionally in industry for setting up decision-making
groups.

Combining random selection and
local groups to deal with particular functions gives a possible
alternative to representative democracy. This alternative has been
called 'demarchy'.

Different
goals

The best alternative to some
bureaucracies would be to get rid of them altogether. Spy agencies
are used more to contain the population than to resist outside
enemies, and could be abolished with no great loss to the rest of the
population. Military forces could be replaced by nonviolent community
resistance, as described in Section 4.

Bureaucracies are so dominant and
so familiar that most people do not think about the possibility of
alternatives. There are many possible alternatives, but they all need
further investigation and experimentation. Many of the alternatives
need to be modified, adapted or fine-tuned in order to be really
effective -- just as bureaucracies have had to be over many decades.
The main point is that there are alternatives.

6.
Lessons

Based on our investigations, we
have the following comments concerning the task of challenging
bureaucratic elites.

It is extremely difficult to
change bureaucracies.

Most bureaucratic elites, however
corrupt they may be, are never challenged. Bureaucratic elites have
enormous power to squash opponents, for example the way the Vatican
crushed the Modernists. If we had wanted to, we could have listed
case after case of failed challenges. Our case studies are not a
representative cross-section of challenges, since we have included a
good number of successes.

The challenges that are made
usually aim to change policies or personnel, not the structure of
bureaucracy itself. The campaign against the Australia Card didn't
aim to change the Australian government bureaucracies. It had success
in stopping the proposed identity card, but the government's basic
goal was achieved through other means.

Sometimes, though, a campaign to
change a policy can lead to changes in the bureaucracy. The women's
campaign against BHP hiring practices led to a degree of change in
the company, namely a less anti-women working environment. This was a
significant change, even if the basic hierarchical relationships
remained.

To change bureaucracies, a
collective challenge is needed.

A lone whistleblower like Vince
Neary has little chance of success. Speaking the truth is seldom a
good strategy just on its own. It's also necessary to mobilise other
supporters on the inside or outside.

The idea that bureaucracies are
similar to authoritarian states is a useful one. To challenge an
authoritarian state requires a careful strategy. Building support is
crucial. Courageous individuals are needed to make open challenges,
but these have to be planned in ways that build further support. Some
of the methods that can be used in mounting a challenge are: careful
documentation of problems; holding discussions and meetings;
circulating leaflets and publishing letters and articles; liaising
with the media; building links with outside groups; and using a
variety of methods of nonviolent action, from rallies to pickets and
occupations.

The Dutch soldiers' movement
carried out its campaigns effectively. By organising a union and
operating collectively, the movement accomplished much more than any
number of isolated protesters could have. A military bureaucracy is
very similar indeed to an authoritarian state, but even states can be
toppled through nonviolent action.

To have any chance of achieving
lasting change, it is vitally important to have an alternative.

Most challenges to bureaucratic
elites do not even imagine the possibility that there are
alternatives to bureaucratic systems, hence they are unlikely to lead
to lasting change.

Struggles to change bureaucracy
are usually lengthy.

The Movement for the Ordination of
Women took ten years to change the official policy of the Anglican
Church in Australia, and even that is not enough to transform the
male-dominated power structure. Attempts to reform prison structures
may require decades and there is the constant danger of a reversion
to traditional hierarchical systems.

Is it a good idea for activists to
make plans for years or decades? Certainly it helps for some to have
a long-term vision. But how many people would join a campaign that
was expected to last years? Most people get involved with the idea of
a quick victory, and some of them then become committed through their
experiences. How to build a long-term campaign is a difficult
challenge. Bureaucracies by their nature have the long-term
commitment of workers, especially the elites. It is far easier to go
along with the prevailing way of doing things rather than constantly
pushing for change.

A key to change is legitimacy.

If citizens withdraw support, even
the most oppressive regime will collapse. Bureaucracies are similarly
vulnerable. But just saying 'withdraw support' is inadequate. The
question is how. Challengers need to understand, through analysis or
experience, how the bureaucracy maintains loyalty, how communication
systems operate, how links are made with other organisations, how
power is exercised against dissent, how people's beliefs and
commitments are forged. Not easy! Furthermore, just understanding how
the system operates is not enough. It's necessary to know what
actions will bring about change.

There's a great need for study of
the process of bureaucratic change from the grassroots, of
experimentation with alternative ways of organising work, and of
testing out various ways of probing and challenging bureaucracies.

Even just raising the idea that
bureaucracy is not the only way of organising work is significant.
The idea of democratic alternatives to bureaucracies, not just policy
or personnel change within bureaucratic structures, needs to be put
on the agenda of activists pushing for a more participatory
society.

References

Schweik

Jaroslav Hasek, The Good
Soldier Svejk and his Fortunes in the World War. Translated by
Cecil Parrot. (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974).

Vince Neary versus State
Rail

Vince Neary, Second Report on
Victimisation and Harassment in my Employment Situation in the State
Rail Authority since taking a Stand against Unsafe Signalling
Practices and Large Scale Rorts in the Engagement of Consultants on
Signalling Projects, 19 February 1993.